Relationships!

February 11th, 2023| Topic: RaMbLeS | 4

Last month, Drs. Robert Waldinger and Marc Schulz, directors of the Harvard Study of Adult Development, wrote a fascinating essay in The New York Times: “The Lifelong Power of Close Relationships,” adapted from their recent bestseller, The Good Life.

The study that these authors direct has been ongoing for 85 years (and is still continuing), tracking an original group of 724 men and more than 1,300 of their male and female descendants over three generations, and asking thousands of questions and taking hundreds of measurements about what keeps people healthy and happy. They watched entire lives unfold through time, studying subjects from teenage through old age, learning about what really mattered to health and to happiness.

It all commenced in Boston in 1938, when researchers began closely following very different groups of boys: one, a group of 268 sophomores at Harvard College, selected because they were deemed likely to grow into healthy and well-adjusted adults. The other, 456 fourteen-year-old boys who were growing up in some of Boston’s most troubled families and most disadvantaged neighborhoods. All were interviewed; homes were visited; even parents were questioned and listened to; medical exams were administered.

Over the following decades, these teenagers grew up into adults who entered all walks of life: factory workers, lawyers, bricklayers, doctors …. Some climbed the social ladder from the bottom all the way to the very top, and others, vice versa.

Through all those years of studying those lives, one crucial factor stood out that could predict who would end up as a happy and healthy octogenarian. Nope, it wasn’t career accomplishments, regular exercise, or healthy diets. Not low cholesterol or normal blood pressure or even good skincare! Not that those weren’t important. But only one thing constantly demonstrated its broad and sustained importance.

The people who were the healthiest, mentally and physically, at age 80 were—wait for this!—the most satisfied in their relationships at age 50.

Waldinger and Schulz:

If we had to take all 85 years of the Harvard Study and boil it down to a single principle for living, one life investment that is supported by similar findings across a variety of other studies, it would be this: Good relationships keep us healthier and happier. Period. If you want to make one decision to ensure your own health and happiness, it should be to cultivate warm relationships of all kinds.”

Like most older people, those in the Harvard Study experienced day-to-day fluctuations in their levels of physical pain and health difficulties. Not surprisingly, their moods were lower on the days when they had more pain. But the moods of those in strong relationships fluctuated far less.

Of course, the study authors explain all this in biological terms:

Human beings have evolved to be social, and the biological processes that encourage social behavior are there to protect us. When we feel isolated, our bodies and brains react in ways that are designed to help us survive that isolation.”

Maybe.

But I think there is a deeper more foundational reason:

Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness.”
Genesis 1:26

We were created in the image of a God who is in himself a perfect fellowship of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

And then, the first “not good” of the Bible:

Then Yahweh God said, “It is not good for the man [’adam in Hebrew] to be alone.”
Genesis 2:18

Created for one another, we were, in the image of God.

So let’s go and be healthy and happy … by investing in our relationships! As God designed us to be.

SOURCE: The New York Times